Howdy folks! I've wanted to build one of these for some time now - it just took seeing what Gareee was able to do for me to take action! 'spose I should introduce myself a bit - I'm a 21 year old student at the University of Louisville, studying Computer Information Systems. I'm also presently a happy Co-op at General Electric. Sadly, I don't exactly have any acquaintences who have done a project similar to this, but hopefully I'll meet a few folks along the way!

Anyhow, I can talk about myself more later - at the present I'd prefer to get back to work figuring out the foam for this project. I'm using MDF as my motherboard, and a combination of MDF and Insulation Foam for everything else. Most of the details are being done 'Gareee' style, as I'm attempting to do this under the example he set forth. As I go along, I'm planning on fully documenting everything I purchase for this project, and a rough log of what I use from the numerous 'piles o' crap' about my apartment.

Here are a few photos from Night #1!

I've managed to finish trimming most of the electrical boxes before it got dark, but several still need some attention tomorrow. Two days covered in Smurf Dust is A-Okay with me! At present I'm dry fitting everything and attempting to figure out how these parts modify the measurements in the plan. I can already see that I need to extend the Motherboard, though I somewhat already knew that from reading that Gareee did. I just forgot about it when I had the original cut .

Everything fresh from their shopping bags, ready to begin! Notice the true-spec Jumpsuit in the back, another new arrival today.

An aerial view of everything - I think I'll need some guidance on my poor Belt Gizmo. Never really dealt with Leather.

My copious amount of MDF and Insulation Foam. BY THE WAY: Lowes (In Louisville, anyhow) has apparently fired the Blue stuff and gone Green. The guy said this occured in the past month.

Gareee wrote:BTW, that looks like a LOT of insulation foam. I used only one sheet for two packs, and still have enough left from probably a third pack.

It is hard to eyeball, but that looks like the 1/2 inch foma, not the 3/4 inch. That means you'll need more layers, and have to cut more.

I found a fine toothed had jigsaw was the best for cuting foam.. it cuts FAST though, so ya gotta be on the ball. And better to cut too large and cut or sand down, then too small.

You made me paranoid, so I went to measure... It's actually 1 inch, not 3/4. Oops. The sign said 3/4, I didn't bother to measure! Hopefully that doesn't throw me too far off >_<. I could always buy more, but then I'd have a huge sheet of foam with nothing to do with it. The other 'cut' in the foam is just out of camera focus - it's one sheet cut into thirds so it would fit in my car.

I'm going to head out to Harbor Freight tommorrow after work to see if I can pick up a Jigsaw cheaply. Thanks for the tip!

Harbor Freight didn't have any of their cheap jigsaw's in stock, so I opted to pick up a small Hacksaw at Lowe's. In combination with the smaller Hacksaw I already picked up, I think I'll forego purchasing the jigsaw - these things work great! I think they do pretty good, anyhow .

I've cut a piece of MDF down to workable size and I've marked off the initial boundries of the Motherboard. I'm going with Gareee's dimensions of 27.5"x16" - So far so good!

For my first piece of Foam, I did one of the top layers of the Sync Generator/Spacer/Whatever you want to call it. I think it came out OK, only one mistake - I'll either tackle it with Wood filler or just cut a new piece - I've got plenty of foam and little practice! I went with a mix of Norm and Sean's design for this piece... I found Norms to be 'off' to me, unless I was missing something. I took some of the initial numbers that Garee gave me ("Around a 12" diameter for the circle") and built Sean's measurements ontop of that. I'm relatively happy with it so far... Please point out anything that could be wrong!

The 'finished' piece with my saw's... They work excellent in conjunction with a little sandpaper!

"The Mistake"

Current layout of the top - still have not finished sanding down the blue boxes. May get some wood filler on the holes tomorrow... Again, please point out anything that looks flat-out wrong to you. I love having fresh eyes take a look at these things.

Pack Status at the end of night 2! (3? I don't know where to start counting, to be honest!)

I picked up elmer's wood filler from walmart... it worked great on both the electrical boxes and the foam.

Don't worry about the individual foam piece filling.. you are going to glue them all together, sand them so the edges match, and then fill and resand anything you need to.

Also if you have an orbital sander, you can cut your parts less precise, and slightly larger... the sander will make VERY quick smooth work of the parts. You need a very light touch with it.

You can use regular sandpaper and hand sand, but the orbital sander makes final shaping/cleanup only take a few minutes.

I also used the orbital sander with one of its odd shaped "bits" on my gun handles.

BTW looks like the space between the booster and the crank and gear boxes is a bit too wide to me.from the edge of the booster to the widest bottom part of the crank box, I'm seeing 1 3/8 inch here. (Not a biggie, since this is a custom build anyway.) I'm not sure, but it looks like the original packs only had an inch or so space there.

I took Gareee's advice and thinned down the area between the booster and the crank box - I like the look a bit better. Now we're down to approx. an Inch between the widest part of the PVC and the Crank box. Took a stab at the 'first layer' of foam today... Relatively pleased with it. Left the right-hand side of it relatively un-cut, not sure how far inwards to chop it down... Suggestions? Is it right to leave it all there?

Picked up a few more goodies today, pictures following... Going to try and get the washers and reflectors for the Cyclotron tomorrow. Lowes failed at having either, at least nowhere I could find! (I think they were just sold out of the Reflectors, though). - Hopefully I'll get the measuring for them done tonight. That class in Engineering Drafting is coming in handy for this project! Arc intersecting two lines, etc...

As usual, photos incoming!

Today's booty from the island of Lowes and Wal-mart... Also got a military flashlight for the Uniform, but forgot to throw it in here.

Initial Drawing before cutting...

After cutting - again my two little hacksaws performed admirably! Easy to control, clean...

I think I did OK with the cutting and drawing - they are relatively similar before sanding.

A shot to give you an idea of the height of everything, as well as my layering... Initial plans called for 3 layers for the Sync generator... But I bought the wrong kind of Foam. Still debating going back and getting 3/4", but I may be OK with these two layers. Essentially, without buying new foam, I can be 1/4" under or 3/4" over. I figured the lesser of two evils is best? Thoughts?

Final dryfit of day 3! I'm aware that my Gun Block needs to come down a bit - just have not figured out how far it needs to come down. Will cut foam accordingly when that decision has been made.

Also did not get a chance to wood fill my boxes - I forgot to buy a scraper today, and I still need to dremel down the remaining bits of plastic. Tomorrow!

Bah. For the record, I now hate my Cyclotron... Remember that earlier statement about my Drafting skills coming in handy? Well, apparently that only works in 2D. These things are quite easy and precise with thin lines and no physical boundry to your tools. Bah. I'll tackle this again in the morning - is there some cheating method for doing this that I'm not privy to? Perhaps I'm just being too picky about it being precise.

Excellent fast work! My gun block top is 1 1/2 inch lower then the top of the gear box. (Both or packs are slightly different.) My sync generator is 2 layers 3/4 inch, 1 1/2 inch deep. That is slightly thin for the yellow label for the side, so 2" would be a better choice.

Oh! For reflectors we just bought one large one from walmart for a buck or two, and I cut them into quarters.

You can use your dremel saw on them, and once you have a light score, snap them off easily. Use gloves though because the edges are sharp, since its very hard plastic, and break them away from you, not towards.

Also don't worry too much about ragged cake holes.. they will be covered up by the washers anyway. just use a mallet and two block of wood to flatted the edges completely.

Gareee wrote:Oh! For reflectors we just bought one large one from walmart for a buck or two, and I cut them into quarters.

You can use your dremel saw on them, and once you have a light score, snap them off easily. Use gloves though because the edges are sharp, since its very hard plastic, and break them away from you, not towards.

Also don't worry too much about ragged cake holes.. they will be covered up by the washers anyway. just use a mallet and two block of wood to flatted the edges completely.

Hit up Home Depot today during lunch, still no joy on the Washers... Can't find washers nearly that big at either Lowes OR Home Depot. I'm looking for some specialty hardware stores in the area now for after work...

Not alot of updates this weekend due to running around looking for parts, and trying to stop leaks in my apartment. I'm heading off to work on it some more now, and will give a nicer update tonight. In the meantime, here's an update-in-pictures of the last two days progress! First post is updated with things purchased...

From J. Kerezmen, eBay.

Puttying up the Electrical Boxes

The fact that these are off by even a tiny bit will forever annoy me, I know.

I'm heading to Radio Shack right now for a little bit of a 'fun' project... Another Engineer [I live with two Electrical Engineers ] and I ripped apart one of the non-functional MT500's last night... We found that it was not too difficult to tap into it, thus making it quite possible for me to have a theme song generator attached to my person at all times . Need to grab an Amplifier and consider ways of storage beyond sticking my iPod in there [Which works fine, just need to open up the battery compartment to change songs. A little dremel love and I've made a nice compartment for it to sit, though!]

Gareee wrote:Pretty cool idea! We hooked our walkie talkies up to our shoulder straps like in the game.

Might actually be cool to record and play back the varios downed "help" cries from the other Ghostbusters as well! LOL!

That's what I'm planning on doing as well... Just finished up the radio, and it works great! Instead of putting my iPod inside the radio, I'm snaking the cable back down to my jumpsuit pocket... May also look into finding a 'ghostbusters'-looking way to mount my iPod to my belt for easy changes.

Just dropping in while working on everything... Time to go finish sanding & start painting the Sync Generator!

So, my Proton Pack sort of took back seat to this MT500 modification today... but I still got some work done on top of the MT500. Two coats of paint are on the Sync generator (revealing flaws that I didn't see before paint, sadly. Oh well. Nothing life-ending ), and primer is up on the Cyclotron parts. Its a start!

After one coat...

Two coats... Looking better!

Closest thing to a 'status shot' I can do at the end of Day #8. Everything is sort of in pieces being painted. Will hopefully finish up the Electrical Boxes and give them some primer on Wednesday. Won't accomplish much beyond another coat on the stuff I have now tomorrow.

A look inside the modified MT500... Quite loud, should be plenty enough to give me some theme music. This probably isn't the right place to discuss this project, though, so I won't go into too much detail. Quite proud of this one.

For lighting, I got two of the LED Chaser Kits from AllElectronics.com, and a flasher kit - will modify them as needed. I really wanted to order one of Exoray or Proptronix kits. Almost did so twice. BUT... Not only will I save some money this way, but I'm attempting to keep this pack a bit of a learning experience. I haven't used much of my knowledge of circuits and logic design outside of class . The REAL test of my willpower will come to the gun - the kits and lights are just too pretty. Of course, I'm toying with the idea of modifying a silly string shooter (a la Bradester), but I can't find one I like. I also love what someone did with the Nerf Vulcan, but again... Not sure if I'm creative enough for all that . Any advice on putting together my own gun lighting would be greatly appreciated!

Once I graduate college (and become a full Salaried employee), I fully intend on making a screen accurate kit. Someday. Exoray shell & lights, real/resin parts, Irricanian/ThrowingChicken guns & parts.. *sigh*. This stuff will have to do me for now, though!

From Irricanian, just began inquiring about some of the tubing (Can't find anything I like as a substitute around here), and ribbon cable clamps.

As always, it won't go on the list of parts until I have it in my grubby little hands. I still have a Booster Frame incoming from gb_dan, an ALICE pack waiting for me out near Fort Knox, a web belt, elbowpads... anyhow, Lots of goodies!

Not a lot of updates on Day 9, beyond today's prior post detailing what I have coming in the mail.

Only thing that arrived today was my Pistol Belt (from paradestore.com). Fits great (They sell fat kid sizes!), but its a bright white color. No good. Need to peruse the dye isle at the local Kroger - some Pearl Grey RIT should fix it (I hope). I think Khaki would be more appropriate, but I've never seen Khaki dye. Add "how to dye belt" to my list of advice requests .

As you can see, quite bright white.

Anyhow, new coats of paint on the Sync Generator and black on the Cyclotron. No pictures, as I think i'm getting fairly redundant with those at this point . More progress to be made tomorrow!

travisccook wrote:Of course, I'm toying with the idea of modifying a silly string shooter (a la Bradester), but I can't find one I like.

I had this idea too. I don't think I'm ready to start building one any time soon, but I did do some brainstorming as to how to get that to work. Turns out a regular ol' can of silly string would probably work just fine. Just pop off the little white nozzle and the string will shoot straight out of the can. You would just need to rig up a little something to depress the strem (without blocking it completely), but that probably wouldn't be too hard.

Plus sides are they're cheap ($2 at WalMart, check the toy section) and small enough so you're not trading off too much form for function.

Hooray, Cyclotron is done painting-wise. I think the Sync Generator needs one or two more coats, though. Perhaps I'm just going paint-crazy, but I want that thing sealed!

I'm determined to finish dremel-ing the darned Electrical Boxes tonight and get a coat of Primer on them. In theory my elbowpads will also show up today - that'll probably take up the remainder of my evening then.

Since i missed a status shot last night, here's the best I can muster this morning after things are dried:

Expensive hobby! Current totals on the pack (not including uniform) is hovering around $250. Expensive part was really the tools, though... Should'nt need much more in the way of materials to finish it - lots of detail items. The wand is what scares me expense-wise .

If you have electrical skills, check out the arnuino thread here by Sys.. he has a system he's working on that uses all the actual gun switches to activate all the sound effects on the pack! Just amazing stuff, and Only about $120 I think for everything you need. (That includes all the lighting as well.)

Gareee wrote:If you have electrical skills, check out the arnuino thread here by Sys.. he has a system he's working on that uses all the actual gun switches to activate all the sound effects on the pack! Just amazing stuff, and Only about $120 I think for everything you need. (That includes all the lighting as well.)

I'm probably going to try to tackle that before Halloween.

I'd love to do use Arduino - Just waiting for someone to finalize the parts list and some general wiring guides before tackling it. I have enough know-how to assemble and tweak things, but not enough to start from scratch.

As for status on the pack... Very little. Final coats of paint (for now) are on and dry, and primer is up on most of the electrical boxes. Still need to clean up a few of the single gang boxes with the dremel, though. That should happen tonight. Its hard to find time to do it, because once you do it you're covered in smurf dust .

Belt/Pads are dyed. Used the Cannon Sports Volleyball pads, so they didn't take dye very well (the bands are striped, even though you can't so much tell in the picture). Will touch up with Fabric Paint/Grey Primer tonight, if I get a chance to drop by Hobby Lobby today. I think I'm relatively happy with how the belt came out, though. Might have preferred a bit more Khaki, but it works.

This'd be YESTERDAY's status shot. A little late, but it works. Day 10 and rolling!